1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method and system for protecting data from being lost or damaged, accidentally or by sabotage.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is difficult to protect network-accessible data from being lost or damaged, accidentally or by sabotage. It is particularly difficult to protect data that is replicated over multiple network-accessible locations. A failure of the system to protect the data at any one or more of the locations needs to be rapidly known, and corrective measures need to be taken promptly.
This situation is becoming more difficult to deal with because data is more widely disseminated among more computers, each of which is potentially vulnerable. Accidents are more likely to happen with this increased degree of complexity. Skilled crackers (malevolent hackers), viruses (programs that “infect” other programs by embedding into them), worms (programs that self-reproduce and propagate over a network) and Trojan horses (security-breaking programs disguised as something benign) are becoming more capable and numerous. Defending every computer from every type of accident and attack has had limited success. In theory each computer can be maintained with the latest security patches and with adequate staff on hand to defend against attacks, however, this rarely happens because it is prohibitively expensive.
It is therefore desirable to provide an improved method, system and article of manufacture for maintaining the integrity of network-accessible data.